


Deep_stone

by JenCforCarolina



Series: Selene [14]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/pseuds/JenCforCarolina
Summary: None of them will tell you that the army is made of everyone we meet. The people we work with and the people we see in the street and the people we tell about our dreams. We kill them all. I think because we were made to kill and this is the part of us that thinks about nothing else.Ghost Fragement: Legends -Deep Stone Crypt
Series: Selene [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1250069
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	Deep_stone

Selene-12 wakes up in a cold sweat. That is all she can describe it as, the alien feeling reminiscent of void on her brow and the back of her neck. The tundra of her nightmare was _cold_ , but how can she still feel it? 

She flexes her finger joints, sending sparks of arc between matterweave tendons. She pretends it calms her, pretends she no longer feels the ghost of a weapon in her hand. Then she shifts to sit upright and focus on the flow of the storm up and down her plasteel spine. Tries to get a grip.

This is the eighth dream in recent weeks. She does not know what to do.

Why now? What changed? The Almighty has fallen, the City is saved. Something else looms, she knows. There are whispers of the darkness. Is that why she dreams of killing?

Since the last one she found a name, from digging in the cryptarchs’ measly archives on Exos. They call it the Deep Stone Crypt. But she does not know what to do with this information. There was little to no expansion on what it is, what it means. And all it did was make her wonder exactly how few of the cryptarchs are Exos.

And it made her realize she has no Exo friends. Delah and Kamon died in the Red War. Cayde was not a friend, but he was dead too, either way. Ylem, an Awoken, would not understand what she needed. Ikora might, but it would take a long twisting conversation to get to the point where Selene could communicate it effectively. And she hated those.

There was always…

But after the Red War she and Auburn grew apart. Auburn has a girlfriend the war brought her closer to. She has her civilian outreach initiative with Zavala and Hawthorne. Selene still works for Hawthorne often, but is never tasked with civilian escorts. Her reputation for cooperating with strangers is still marred by her early days and attitude, and the Vanguard have a long collective memory. 

And Auburn has Rasputin, whatever that means at the present moment. Selene saw her in the tower when the Almighty was destroyed, but her mentor was shoulder to shoulder with Zavala, reading out statistics of the missile payloads and the projected impact times for each cluster, updates presumably from the Warmind himself. She had flashed Selene a bright smile, as warm and welcoming as always, but she was all business that day. 

They just don’t talk anymore. And Selene fears what that means.

So she stands and buttons her robes, the sun is rising, there is work to be done.

\---

The ninth dream has Auburn’s face among the others. Selene screams as her rifle arm raises.

She jolts awake, her body convulsing and bending forward. Her jaw opens to suck in air that wheezes past pistons and cables. She pants for a handful of breaths before being struck by how utterly bizarre the reaction is. She is not human, she does not have lungs, nor adrenaline. She does not have a heart to clutch at, though her hand has arrived at her chest. She can’t actually feel anything beating there, none of this should be involuntary, none of this should happen.

She opens a message to send to Auburn. She closes it and reopens it six times, begins recording on the seventh and erases it again and again and again before settling on something that feels neutral, like it won’t frighten her. Something that sounds casual, like nothing is wrong. Like she isn’t scared.

“Cosmodrome wall? Meet me there, soon?”

She closes the GUI before she can worry over how long it takes Auburn to receive it, and to listen. She has a girlfriend, she’s practically Zavala’s protegee, she’s busy. It’s fine, it’s fine.

Her integrated comms chirp a response. It is from Auburn, it is quick, and it makes light well to her throat with feelings she can’t put words to. “Selene? I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

How soon is soon, this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow?

She draws the light up and relaxes it down. Ebb and flow, storm and harmony…

“You should get moving.” Coach says, gently, rising from their Ghost-shaped nest on the bed. “She’s not far off.”

\---

The Cosmodrome is empty. Selene drops on a rooftop, and treks her way up to the wall. This was where Auburn stood when they met, surveying the Russian ruins. Selene does the same, refuses to acknowledge how long she stands there, looking, watching, waiting.

It’s a long time -and yet it isn’t- before Auburn’s jumpship thunders overhead. It swings wide across the crumbled highway and takes an approach vector along the wall. Selene blinks but does not flinch at the risky choice of transmat location. Faulty calculations could put her in the air on either side of the wall -or worse, in the cavity within. But Auburn hits the concrete running, lifting over a hole and carrying towards Selene at a jog. She would look ready for a fight, if she weren’t unarmed, and helmetless. She slows before Selene, breathless and with worry on her brow.

“I’m fine.” Selene tries to assure. “I just…”

A string of notifications flicker on her HUD, telemetry handshakes and a formal request from Auburn’s ghost to join her fireteam. Selene blinks approval automatically, then does a double take. Before the Red War, it was the other way around. Before the Red War, Auburn was always lead. Before the Red War was the last time they were on a team together at all…

Auburn stops in front of her.

“I’m sorry.” She says, and Selene can detect the emotion with instincts learned beside gunfighting and stormcalling. “I realized it’s been much too long since we were formally on a team together. I let us drift apart and I regret that.”

Selene falters, processes. “No, it’s-” This was not how she wanted the conversation to go, “I’m not-,“ and not what she intended to talk about, “You aren’t-,” and isn’t that just how it always goes, with Auburn?

She cancels all other proposed sentence starts provided by her subroutines. Lets cool air escape through her jaw and throat like an organic sigh. She casts out the light to see and feel, catch Auburn and her melodic storm. She feels warm and bright, the sun on her armor and her light within. And Selene feels warm too, despite the eternal Siberian frost in the air.

“I missed you.” Selene says, raw and honest. “And I had a nightmare.”

Auburn’s face softens to sympathy, and she opens her arms for Selene to fall into. As they embrace the arc flickers around them both, following old paths it has not forgotten, blending and weaving and recognizing two conduits of the same charge. Selene’s Light wells in time to Auburn’s breath, enough she almost feels alive herself. She missed this so much.

“I cleared the day.” Her mentor says. “Tell me everything. I’ll follow you.”

**Author's Note:**

> What was potential setup to get me interested in my Exo again before the next expansion turned into Jensie loves platonic relationships.


End file.
